As Methadone Pretty blasts full power on the stereo I hear the door being hammered, I stop the music, neck my beer, I wait…

Police? TV license man? Bailiffs? All as likely as another.

I wait, my heart beating a tattoo in my chest. It goes on and on, knocking, door bell, too aggressive to be TV license surely. I decided, why I can’t tell you, to open the door. Worst fears confirmed: the pigs. I fucking hate the police. Well, not personally, just their over-riding desire to steal my freedom and prevent my freedom. Such as tonight.

But no, that’s untrue. I’d argued with a neighbour over the music, I was high, ignorant as fuck. I threatened to throw her off the balcony or some crap. Which is probably true, but I don’t remember.

So the police arrive, full of arrogance and cheap aftershave, walk right in my flat. And I know the law (what I need to anyway) so I tell him to get out, he starts telling me to take my hat off, hands out of pockets, stop smoking. Taking the bloody piss you know? So I say, "No, you’ve no search warrant, no right of entry, you didn’t ask to come in, you’ve not even taken your shoes off, get to fuck." PC Pigs not happy as I try to push him back out.

Then it got stupid, arguing over shoes and fags, he takes the initiative and pepper sprays me! By GOD it hurts, like a thousand, well, chilli peppers in your eyes, and pins, its the gift that keeps giving. But because I feel he’s taken the piss, I resist arrest, we scuffle, he was really rough with the cuffs, so ashamed to say—I spat at him. Didn’t help relations I can tell you.

Any addict that’s been arrested can tell you the same thing. The Old Bill have an opiate zapper. I swear down, the minute you walk into custody and get put in your poncy little suit, you feel all the drugs fall out of you. You’ll never be as sick as you are in a cell, not allowed a cigarette, reading Anne Robinson's autobiography, thinking you’d never read the second part of the story. But it was here waiting for me, only so much Horse & Houndyou can read. And when you’re reading about Anne, bang at it, pissed out of her head fighting with her old man, having affairs, you realize two things:

Anne Robinson is having more fun than you at the minute.

Everyone, everywhere is at it.

Self harm, drink, drugs, sex, music, internet, bloody Horse & Hound magazine. Some just strike it lucky, some can get through a day or learn to.

About the Author

UPDATE Oct.26.15: Ginger's back and sober. See her blog at link below for more.

Ginger has lived and witnessed the abject tragedy of addiction from seemingly every vantage. She writes about all of it on her blog, Diary of a junkie, with an unflinching honesty that is not for the faint of heart.